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Debian vs MySQL on Ubuntu comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 14, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Debian
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MySQL on Ubuntu
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
28th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Badal Shrivastav - PeerSpot reviewer
Embedded Linux / BSP Engineer at Veethree
Reliable platform has supported long-term on-prem deployments and predictable OTA updates
If I consider how Debian can be improved, it could be more accessible in making newer software versions available for users who need recent features while still maintaining default stable behavior. While backports help, the workflow could be streamlined. The release cycle can feel slow for rapidly evolving tools, and better guidance around mixing stable, backports, and testing would help. Regarding hardware support, Debian can be improved by supporting multiple BSPs, making it more versatile in the embedded domain. Hardware support for new devices can sometimes lag behind, which is understandable given Debian's focus on stability. Clearer guidance on handling newer hardware or firmware would be beneficial.
NP
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Database platform has supported secure ecommerce growth but still needs simpler scaling and monitoring
MySQL on Ubuntu can be improved in a couple of things in my mind. I can consider performance-wise, scalability-wise, reliability, availability, security, and operational simplicity. Right now it is good enough for ourselves or our organization. But if it is considered from a scalability perspective, currently, MySQL on Ubuntu scales fairly well. Write scaling is hard and manual sharding is required. In that case, what we can improve is native sharding support, better distributed write handling, and easier multi-primary setups. For performance optimization, I can say currently the limitation is the required expert tuning. The default configuration is conservative. What we need to do in that is auto-tuning based on the hardware, better index recommendations, and smarter query optimization. Another point is high availability. Currently, what happens is that replication setup is complex. If you make the setup but if you want to replicate it, it will be complex. What we have to do is build in automatic failover, easier cluster setup, and faster recovery time. The fourth thing is security enhancements. Currently, whatever security is set up is manual. Misconfiguration risk is there. What we can improve in that is secure-by-default configuration and mandatory SSL in production because SSL is very important nowadays. This thing we can improve. Stronger password policy by default. For the security perspective, we can provide a stronger password policy by default. For recovery and backup simplicity, I can say that currently, we need scripting for the backups and recovery testing is a manual thing. What we can do here is built-in backup scheduler. We can run one scheduler and every day it will take the backups. If we can have it, it will be great. One-click restore and automated recovery validation. Those things we can improve. Another thing is observability and monitoring. Currently, what happens is limited built-in visibility and external tools required for that. What we can do here is provide native performance dashboard, query heat maps, and bottleneck detection. Those things we can improve. Another thing I can consider is at the Ubuntu level. Because if you consider, the OS and DB configuration is disconnected and kernel tuning is also manual. What we can improve in that is DB-aware kernel tuning, better file system defaults for the DB workloads, and pre-tuned DB server profiles. I can say cloud-native enhancements. Right now we are working on a traditional architecture and manual cloud optimization. It would be better to have Kubernetes native auto-scaling and storage-aware tuning. Those can improve my area for that. Another thing is developer experience. Debugging a query is hard. Currently, if we are running on Ubuntu and code something, there are no other tools we are using. Debugging is very hard. Also, error guidance is limited. We can say that a clearer error message, query rewrite suggestions, and schema change safety checks by default. Those kinds of improvements we can do. I can say I mostly covered the improvements needed for MySQL on Ubuntu, but one thing I can say is that there is also some limitation on the governance and compliance base. Auditing needs configuration. Some configuration we need to read. Compliance reporting also is manual right now. We can improve that with built-in audit templates, compliance-ready modes we can provide, and easier data masking we can do. Those things we can add also.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Debian has positively impacted my organization by bringing strong security and consistent compliance awareness."
"Debian's best features are that it is very light and very comfortable for even older computers."
"Debian positively impacts my organization by allowing us to utilize a much more lightweight operating system with Amazon EC2 instances, which greatly reduces costs because we can use EC2 instances with lower RAM."
"Debian always provides zero downtime because all that is needed is to run pseudo APT upgrade and it fixes NGINX or the other packages that need to be fixed."
"Debian's stability helps me in my daily work because my work relies on stability; I'm trying to deploy production workloads, and Debian offers that stability for me."
"Debian is the most straightforward and compatible option, which greatly simplifies our engineers' tasks."
"Debian offers the best features in that it is open source, simple, and battle-tested, with a good release cycle."
"The best features Debian offers are its low weight, lightweight architecture, and faster response to services."
"I appreciate MySQL on Ubuntu for its relational tables which are faster to read, contributing to the performance in simple applications."
"MySQL on Ubuntu is very simple, easy, and quick to use for people with database expertise."
"MySQL on Ubuntu is the base for most of our applications that are based on Linux, so it is wonderful."
"The primary aspect of MySQL on Ubuntu that I appreciate is that it is extremely reliable among the RDBMS that I have used, and another important quality is that it extends with volume very well as most RDBMS don't scale very well, but this one scales very well and has been very reliable and highly available."
"I have saved a significant amount of time because it's faster to create features with machine learning since it's very fast, and so we get the result in a few seconds."
"MySQL on Ubuntu combination handles it in a very efficient way."
"MySQL on Ubuntu is a great platform to deploy your data as it integrates well with services for ETL, analytics, or even machine learning platforms, and we have not encountered a single downtime while achieving high scalability, availability, and strong data security within our VPC."
"MySQL on Ubuntu has positively impacted my organization by enabling me to use a database that is very easy to use, quick to set up, and inexpensive; this database provides business value because every web application nowadays needs some type of database, so for those that require SQL databases, MySQL on Ubuntu is a great way to do it."
 

Cons

"The stable kernel because it is going to be older and naturally stable does not always support brand new components such as CPUs or specialized GPUs out of the box, which can make it difficult to use there."
"Customer support for Debian has been acceptable. We approached the Azure Debian support, and while it seems adequate, they need to improve somewhat."
"About the features of Debian, of course, it is a slow distribution like many others."
"In terms of scalability, Debian on-premises is not very scalable because it depends on your hardware."
"There are certain areas where Debian can definitely improve, particularly in restricted access privileges for certain aspects."
"I wish the company responsible for Debian would send communications about updates and new features to keep people informed and to give Debian the recognition and praise that it deserves."
"It seems there should be a more deterministic way to do that. It does seem that you are running a lot of random install scripts to install things or relying on another two or three package management services, so there could be better software installation methods."
"I believe Debian can be improved by adding more containerization features out of the box, and it should make some updates when it comes to the UI."
"Integration is always important regarding operating systems and these types of products, so being able to integrate and export or import from JSON structures is very critical."
"Currently, what happens is that replication setup is complex; if you make the setup but if you want to replicate it, it will be complex."
"I would say that MySQL on Ubuntu can be improved particularly in its scaling capabilities."
"I cannot answer regarding improvements. As I said, I am not watching, and I don't know what is in between the application and the database."
"MySQL on Ubuntu can be improved because it has limited analytics query capabilities rather than other competitors."
"Despite some issues such as security concerns when changing passwords which compromised the database, it remains a very good database engine."
"Sometimes, if the indexing is not done very well, I have noticed slowness, but largely, it has performed pretty well."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Debian?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing seems acceptable. We have also used Ubuntu. Comparing to Ubuntu, Debian is cheaper.
What needs improvement with Debian?
In terms of improvements, I think Debian is fine as it is. I'm not an expert, so for me, it is acceptable.
What is your primary use case for Debian?
I have been using Debian for a while now. My main use case for Debian is running PostgreSQL and related infrastructure. A specific example of an application I'm running on Debian is PostgreSQL.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MySQL on Ubuntu?
My experience with the pricing is that we are using free.
What needs improvement with MySQL on Ubuntu?
I believe there could be improvements for MySQL on Ubuntu, particularly with AI integration in scripting tools such as GitHub Copilot, which provides examples and solutions for errors encountered d...
What is your primary use case for MySQL on Ubuntu?
I have used MySQL on Ubuntu over the years, and I am currently working with some Docker products, but most of my experience with Docker is over Windows, not Linux. Currently, I am not using MySQL o...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Debian 12
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Debian vs. MySQL on Ubuntu and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.